Suit Up
by ShaniRona
Summary: Pepperony one shot, random theory for A4. Reunion, Tony's kid, the Rescue suit...just read it. :)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Wow. Hi. I'm alive. Like that's meant to be a joke but also I am actually alive (a lot of BS went down in Pittsburgh this weekend if you haven't heard). Anyway, here's a random thing I came up with after seeing the leaked photo of Gwyn as Rescue. Also: already made the torso to the Rescue suit, so don't worry, that's coming up soon! Ummmm what else...oh, I'll share a photo at the bottom here of my finished IW suit, cause that's fun (or you can see on my IG). Uh...the Duckling Fan Project is going very, very well! If you haven't participated in that, you can go to to see how you can donate and let RDJ know that you're part of the fan gift - trust me, if you love RDJ, you're probably gonna want to get in on this one! ;) That's about it, though. I've just been lacking inspiration cause my friend 'borrowed' my Iron Man set...and that was two months ago almost now soooo... *Sigh*

 **Disclaimer: I do not own anything Marvel or Iron Man related.**

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"Are you sure you don't want anything? Coffee?" the voice of Steve Rogers interrupted, making Tony jump slightly in his seat.

Four hours. Four hours he'd been back on Earth, and the only people he'd recognized so far had been Rogers and Rhodey. Some kind of talking raccoon walked by earlier, but he was pretty sure it was a figment of his very tired imagination at this point.

"No," he grumbled into his hands, folded on the table top in front of him.

"A shower?" Rogers offered instead, but Tony just shook his head.

"I'm fine. I just need someone to get Nebula back in here and listen to us, or this will be irreversible," he growled next. "Okay, as in not fixable, not going back."

"I know what irreversible means," Steve stated slowly and carefully, tone flat to not agitate him further.

"Do you?" Tony snapped back. "I had a kid just...disappear from my arms, Cap. Just gone, turn to dust, just like everyone else around him. And I told him to stay home, I...he didn't listen, and then he was there, and he just..."

And with that, Tony trailed off, rubbing his hands over his face again to try and dissolve the panic attack before it hit him. It'd been years. Five years, they were gone, trying to get back to Earth. They'd fixed up the ship, fixed up the suit...tried to navigate back, with little success at first. And when they finally made it back, they picked up the signal of Rhodey's suit and it lead them to Wakanda, somewhere in Africa. Some place he'd heard of but hadn't had a chance to visit before...well, before he was pulled of the planet.

"It's not your fault, Tony," Steve tried to reassure, but he wasn't hearing it.

And after their short reunion, he was told to sit tight, and since then, Steve had been pushing things on him to freshen up, to adjust to being back on Earth, but Tony wasn't about to let that happen. His head was still full of formulas and ideas and ways to find Thanos an reverse everything. He didn't care about what had changed in the last five years, or who wanted to tell him to let it go. He would bring Parker back. He would bring everyone else back. He'd bring...

"Pepper," he finally whispered, voice raspy again. "None of you will tell me, I get it...but I need to know. I...need to know, Steve," he begged, flashing his dark eyes up at the other man, their differences completely forgotten at this point. "I need to know."

Steve stared at him with a hard expression. He'd never seen Tony beg like this, but then again, he hadn't been on Titan to see him crumble and change, either. This...this shell, this mess..it wasn't the Tony Rogers knew before, and it just didn't seem healthy to give him any more information to adjust to, good or bad.

"Steve."

The voice was familiar, finally. Something he'd recognized...but not his fiance's.

Spinning around in his chair, Tony's eyes fell on Nat, doing a double take at her hair. Blond. Long, and blond. In a ponytail. Weird.

"You're uh...you're a blond now," he commented, the only thing he could force himself to say, and she smirked back, moving around the room delicately, just as she always used to, her arms folding across her chest.

"Stark," she greeted. "I heard a rumor you might be back."

"Rumor's actually a fact," he quipped back, staring. "How about you, wanna give me some info that the super soldier over here won't tell me?"

"Still a pain in our ass," she comments, "even five years later."

"Oh, so just bad cop, bad cap. Is anyone gonna be the good cop or..." he answered, waving his hand around and sitting back in his chair with a sigh. "I just want to know where my wife is."

"She's not your wife yet," Romanoff replied with a cool tone, but that was enough for him.

"She's? Like she isn't. Not she wasn't," Stark repeated, now interested.

With that, Nat and Rogers shared a glance and it basically confirmed it for him. That, and...well, the clicking of heels that followed. That hollow noise, when they hit the tiles on the floor and echo off the room. The one he listened to for nearly twenty years of his life.

Nothing else overcame that noise except the scraping of his chair as he spun around, his breath catching and his eyes wide.

There she was. Still taller than him in heels. Hair pulled back, draping down her back. It's still long. Still blonder than it used to be, but with a warm tint. Five years past, yet not a day older. Not a day different than what he remembered. The same frozen facial expression, the same blue eyes staring at him with the relief they carried all the way back after Afghanistan.

"Tony," she whispered on a breath, not sure what to say, or how to react.

And his gaze danced across her face, taking everything in as he pushed himself up out of the chair, slower than anything he had ever done before. "Pepper..."

"Is it really you?"

Exhaling, his eyes briefly dropped to the floor before taking a step forward, but it only made her take one back.

"Don't," she begged, her hands shaking as she held them up. "Don't...I can't..."

But he didn't care; he had been waiting for this for years. He feet took him toward her anyway, and taking a final look at her when he made it in front of her, he quickly engulfed her in a hug, his arms searching her back and feeling her and making sure she was real.

"It's me. It's me, Pep, I'm here..." he spoke into her hair as he cupped the back of her head.

Her hands found their way around him, still trembling, and he could hear her breath catch as she laughed...but she was sad. He could hear that, too. Hear the relief and the pain of losing him yet again slipping out. And then she was squeezing him so hard it hurt, but he let it happen, just happy to be able to touch her again. Happy to smell her perfume, feel her soft hair under his lips when he kissed her, feel the warmth of her lips when he finally pulled back to kiss her properly.

"I missed you so much..." she whispered when he finally let her go, her fingers twisting in the hair at the base of his neck. "Tony, I...I-"

"I know," he answered quickly, not needing to hear that she thought he was dead. "I know, I messed up, I..."

"It's okay," she tried to assure, lips pressing together with her brow as she let a hand drop to his cheek, feeling the unshaven beard that had grown in.

But the cool metal of the band on her finger caught his attention, and he pulled her hand back with his own, noting the ring and kissing it gingerly before saying anything else.

"You're still wearing it..." he sighed.

"Never stopped..." she promised. "You're it, Stark. No one else."

"I love you."

That's all he could say, all he could let out before hugging her tightly again. Yeah, he was being sappy as hell, but a lot of shit had happened since they last saw each other. So he wanted to hold her, not caring about Nat or Rogers in the room...or...someone else?

"Morgan, over here," he heard Nat say in a hush, and his face immediately scrunched up with a deer in the headlights look.

He released Pepper slightly, looking over his shoulder as a small, probably...close to five year old girl wandered over to Nat's side as she crouched down to receive her. She had fiery red hair and...dark brown eyes when she glanced at the couple, and...

And his head whipped back to Pepper with alarm, questioning, curiosity...

"She's..." he started, pointing at the girl.

"Yeah," Pepper answered, biting her lip. "She's...your daughter..."

Taking a breath with his eyes squeezed shut, Tony let out a slight whistle as he took the hit of the news. Pepper. Daughter. His.

"But you said you weren't..." he tried, desperately wracking his brain to remember their last talk in the park.

"I...I wasn't sure at the time, but..." she answered hesitantly. "And then...you didn't come back and Friday couldn't locate you and..."

"So I'm..." he swallowed, blinking heavily. "I'm a father?"

"Mommy?" the little girl spoke, and God, did it sound like Pepper.

Tony shuddered, not sure how to process this. Yeah, he had wanted this, but now... Is he even capable of being a father now? He'd failed the kid, Peter. Failed half the world's population... And what if they fixed things? What if they reset things and she just...didn't exist. What if this was the only way Morgan existed?

Taking the hint that he was panicking, Pepper squeezed his hand briefly before leaving him to go to the girl, leaning down to take her hands in her own.

"Hey baby...everything's okay. I just had to come get aunt Nat and uncle Steve for a meeting. So you're gonna go hang out with uncle Happy for the day, okay?"

She nodded, but her focus was on Tony, solely. "Who's that?"

"That...that is something we'll talk about when I get back, okay?" Pepper answered softly, not wanting to dive into it now; understandable.

But Pepper was quickly back on her feet, looking serious, and then Nat scooped up Morgan, disappearing with her as Tony's eyes followed.

Steve cleared his throat, grabbing the attention of the room. "What's the word?"

"Rocket said we can trust her," Pepper informed him. "And now that I know Tony was with her..."

"All right," Rogers agreed, nodding at her. "Suit up, let's get this done."

"Wait, what?" Tony interrupted, suddenly being brought back to the present. "Suit up? Who suit up? You?!" he asked with a stunned stare at Pepper.

"Nebula told Rhodey your plan. We had to validate it and now we're going to execute it."

"No," he rushed to say. "No, no!"

"Tony!" she scolded, back to their usual pattern, but he didn't wait for her to explain.

"Not when I know we have a...kid!" he protested, the last word nearly making him cringe. "This could change things, this could-"

"We're just bringing them back, Tony," she tried to quickly explain, following Cap into the hallway, which lured him to follow in a frenzy. "Not resetting the timeline."

"Okay," he heaved, brain not following properly. "But I suit up, you don't suit up. You stay here, with her. You don't even...you don't even have a suit! Are you using my suits?!"

"Sort of," she answered with a smirk before pushing into a room down the hall.

On the end was a display, all of his suits. All of his pre nano tech suits, waiting for his return. And...

"Is that my suit?" he asked when she slowed to a stop in front of one.

"You mean my suit that you made for me?" she quipped. "Yes."

"You built the suit?!"

"Shuri built the suit," she commented, punching in a code to open the case.

"Shuri? Who's Shuri?" And then he took a glance at it when it opened, noting the color change. "It's...purple..."

"It's...modified," she settled on. "Your design, their tech."

"Huh."

He couldn't find anything else to say other than watch as she sighed and punched in another code, something to start a suit up process.

"What, didn't think I'd take your place?"

"Not really," he admitted. "Is it bad if this is kinda hot?"

"That's the five years in space talking," Pepper teased. "Don't be jealous."

"I'm not jealous..." he muttered, then tapped the arc still on his chest, initiating his suit up process. "Mine's still cooler..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing," he covered quickly as the face plate closed over him. "Just be careful."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Oof, you guys requested part two. Didn't say I'd give ya something good...yet. Turning this into a mini series. Maybe two more parts, I dunno.

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Reality, space, mind, and power. All of the stones, except for time and soul, had been recovered in their plan to reverse the snap. And now here they were, the remaining ones, standing atop the mountain on Vormir, preparing to sacrifice one of their own, as if that's a normal thing to do.

Pepper had kicked ass, which was actually impressive to Tony. She explained the suit more after they departed; the Stark tech mixed with the elements from Wakanda expanded into a whole new era of armor, and Tony was already thinking up a million other project in his head once everything was taken care of... _if_ everything could be taken care of. Regardless, as much as he wanted to be protective over her...she didn't seem to need it. She must have been preparing for this the whole time he'd been gone, to protect herself...to protect Morgan.

Morgan. The idea of a daughter still haunted him in a way. Kinda thrilling, kinda not. How would the kid adapt to having a father suddenly tossed into her life? How would he adapt to being a father, in the first place? He could barely sleep in the same bed next to Pepper on the ship he and Nebula had repaired to take them back into space. Human touch was still...weird. She was hesitant the first few nights, but now...now she'd cuddled him to sleep the past couple, after he eventually welcomed it. And last night...last night, the first night they'd been intimate since before Thanos's grunts had invaded New York, was unexpected, but also something he didn't realize he needed. He missed her, and despite being in the middle of space, things felt okay again...at least for the time being.

That was until they figured out how to retrieve the soul stone again. Nebula knew, but they just didn't talk about it until it was next. She knew, and now they all knew, and there they stood, the warm rush of air rushing around them at the sacrificing point. Nothing but silence and the hooded figure that made Steve tense on sight, still scared by his past. But he was nothing more than a figment of the planet, a figment of the afterlife now, and not a threat. Tony had held Rogers back at first, but now he understood that and had backed down.

"This is all I was good for," the blue and purple female spoke up, breaking their shared silence as they all shared a glance.

"There has to be another way," Cap protested, making Tony's jaw crack; he knew there wasn't.

"A sacrifice for the stone," Tony muttered in response, staring at the grassy ground below them. "That's it."

"Stark knows how to pilot the ship," Nebula reinforced her argument. "If I go, I'll be back with Gamora. Let me go back to my sister."

"We need you here," Widow tried, but it was no use.

"I won't do it," Rogers decided, despite being the one to currently wield the gantlet on his arm. "We'll find another way, a way to keep everyone alive."

"I'm nothing but parts, I'm already dead," Nebula stated, and the silence resumed after that.

Tony listened to the wind in his ears. He listened to the thumping in his heart, the hate that he had for this situation, for Thanos...but life was certainly not fair, they had found that out already.

"I don't care," Steve's voice spoke, hard, and he stood his ground at the edge next to her.

And that was it; Tony couldn't handle the long, drawn out sacrifice. He wanted this over. He wanted this over, so the rest of humanity could be saved. So they could go back home and he could regain his family, with Pepper and Morgan and Happy and Rhodey...

"I'll do it," he settled on, voice low as he fought off the pain of the anxiety attack that was slowly creeping up on him.

"Tony-" Pepper breathed, and his eyes instantly shot up at her.

"I'll do it, if Steve won't," he corrected. "She's right. I can pilot the ship, and I can read Shuri's tech. She can't. And I don't want to do this," he sighed, voice pained, "but what other choice do we have?"

With that, the group watched as Nebula stepped into his line of sight. Toward the edge of the cliff, where she waited, facing him. There were no words as he lifted his repulsor toward her, his lips turned down in a permanent frown. He charged it up, holding for a second, and then closed his eyes, turning his head away. He held them tight, refusing to watch, and unleashed the repulsor, sending her over the edge as their sacrifice. He hated being the one to do this, but he knew the others were too weak. He had to, or they would never get all six stones.

But eventually, his eyes reopened, and as they did, the world around him changed. The grassy mountain top turned into stone and snow, and the air was cold, not breezy and warm. His breath sped up as his heart rate faltered while he wildly looked around, realizing something was wrong.

"What is this?" he asks, panic in his eyes. "What's happening?!"

"I'm sorry, Tony," Cap whispered back, mouth open as he tried to find other words that didn't come.

"The sacrifice has to be someone you love," Nebula spoke quietly, releasing the bit of information that he hadn't been told.

And then Tony realized. The red stone on the glove was bright, and now fading, altering reality. Nebula was there, where Pepper was. And Pepper was...Pepper was...

"Pepper!" he yelled, realization flooding over him and making him sick, and instantly, the jets of the suit propelled him over the edge, down toward the bottom of the cliff.

The flashbacks of the drop to the ground after Rhodey was hit by Vision were in his eyes, but that didn't matter. Now his focus was on the ground, on the delicate, petite figure that lay, without the purple suit he recognized. Her red hair flaming out behind her that he'd never see in a bun at the office or in her eyes in the shower again, her blue eyes like ice and cold as the blood spilled from her body that would never look at him with the shine and kindness she gave him when she cared for him. He'd never hear her voice or that laugh when he teased her about wearing heels around him. He thought they had more time, but they didn't.

Tears welled in his eyes as he landed, scooping her still warm body up in his arms, despite the red liquid seeping into his own suit. It was her. It was Pepper, they altered reality and made him see someone else, but it was Pepper all along.

"Why'd you take the suit off?!" he managed, retracting his own glove so he could brush back her hair with his own hand and not the metal glove; he wanted to touch her, to feel her again with his own skin and not the suit before he couldn't anymore. "I could've...it could've been me," he whispered. "I was gone for five years, Pep. You raised our daughter for five years without me, fought off threats for five fucking years..."

Too focused on her, Tony didn't hear the portal of the space stone open to allow the others to join him. He only realized when he felt a soft hand, probably Widow's, on his metal coated shoulder.

"It was her idea, Tony," she spoke softly, but it didn't comfort him. "She knew you wouldn't have done it otherwise."

But he was shaking to hard to listen completely, and his eyes refused to leave her face. He had her back, just to break her heart. Just to kill her.

"It should've been me," he answered, though he was more so talking to Pepper in his arms than responding to Nat. "I can't do this without you, Hon, I can't... You don't deserve this. We have a kid, Pep. I don't know how to raise a kid. And...and the wedding. I love you, we still have that dinner res to catch. We still have to get married. We can still be a family, we can...we..."

Tony Stark never cried. At least not in front of them. Maybe in front of Pepper, and once in front of Steve when they fought. Once on Titan, losing Pete. But this...this was the one that broken him. This was a million times worse than losing the kid. This time, he was the reason. He killed her. He killed the only thing that ever cared for him, and she'd never get to know if they managed to save the rest of the world. Was it worth it? For her sacrifice? The rest of them for her? No. Because now she was dead, and so was he inside.

"It should be me," Stark muttered, holding her close. "It should be me, not her."

"I'm sorry, Stark," that damned raccoon mumbled from somewhere behind him, but he was too concerned with her body, which was now fading in front of him, disappearing into the air with some other sort of sorcery, but not that of the dust.

"Pep," he yelled urgently, trying to hold on; he couldn't lose another one, he refused to. "Pep, no. Please...Pepper. Pepper!"

But she faded into nothing before him, breaking his heart, while the necklace that he had gifted her with the shrapnel from his heart and the diamond ring on her finger remained on the ground, the only things he had to take with him to remember her.

"One more to go," he heard Nebula mutter under her breath, as if the sacrifice meant nothing.

To them, it wouldn't, would it? She'd be forgotten, a name in a book maybe, and that was it. But to him, it meant the world. It meant the loss of his best friend, his fiance, the mother of his child...and that was irreplaceable.


End file.
